OC Transpo gets top marks from Ottawa commuters

Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen03.18.2014

According to the 2013 customer survey, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,525 randomly selected people conducted between Nov. 22 and Dec. 10, 80 per cent of transit users rated OC Transpo as “good” or “very good.” More than 800 of the respondents are regular transit users.

OTTAWA — A customer survey has given OC Transpo its highest overall rating since a transit strike more than five years ago drove down satisfaction levels significantly, but the company still has work to do to make its female riders feel safer late at night.

According to the 2013 customer survey, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,525 randomly selected people conducted between Nov. 22 and Dec. 10, 80 per cent of transit users rated OC Transpo as “good” or “very good.” More than 800 of them were regular riders.

The satisfaction level was 73 per cent among non-riders.

While overall satisfaction is on the rise — 2013’s rating was up from 73 per cent in 2012 — it’s still not as high as it was before the mid-winter transit strike of December 2008 and January 2009 paralyzed the system for seven weeks.

The satisfaction level dropped to 68 per cent in 2009, months after the labour dispute ended.

The annual customer survey was expanded last year to include additional questions about safety and security — issues that have been on the minds of many Ottawa residents in the wake of sexual assaults, swarmings and bus driver attacks.

On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being “very safe and secure,” OC Transpo received an overall rating of 7.4 out of 10.

But female riders appear to feel less safe as daylight fades. The vast majority — 96 per cent — said they feel safe waiting at a bus stop during the day, but that number drops considerably to 49 per cent late at night.

Male respondents also said they feel less safe waiting for a bus late at night.

Women say they feel safer when other people are around, while men say the presence of security phones and mirrors eases their minds. The nighttime stop request program is highly valued by both.

Transit commission chair Diane Deans and OC Transpo general manager John Manconi said they are taking the responses to the safety questions seriously.

“I think those are things we can learn from,” Deans told reporters after the transit commission met on Wednesday. “We need to take those seriously.”

Manconi said the bus company plans to, among other things, look at existing lighting at all Transitway stations and inside some shelters, issuing highly visible uniforms to maintenance staff to make them more visible during evening hours and requiring transit supervisors to conduct regular evening walkabouts at transit stations.

“We take safety very seriously,” Manconi said.

That may be true, but a Citizen analysis of assault and harassment reports collected by OC Transpo earlier this year revealed how widespread the problem is.

It found that a substantial number of the 108 reported incidents in 2013 involved men assaulting or harassing women, and that the violence often occurred in broad daylight.

The numbers showed nearly half of the 75 attacks by men were against women and of those, there were 10 reports of sexual assault and harassment, including groping and grabbing.

The Billings Bridge and Blair transit stations were relative hot spots for violence, according to the records.

Survey respondents were also asked to choose which characteristic best represents OC Transpo.

Convenient and reliable was picked by 37 per cent, while 28 per cent chose safe and secure, and 19 per cent chose environmental sustainability. Just three per cent said superior service quality is the characteristic that best fits the bus company.

Similarly, respondents rated reliability, driver respectfulness and good service value for money as all being important, yet they gave OC Transpo lower marks in each category when it came to actual delivery.

It was the first time the survey asked about Presto. Users view the new touch-card payment system as more convenient than non-Presto users.

Although overall satisfaction may be on the rise, ridership is down. Total rides fell below 100 million in 2013 for the first time in three years.

Manconi, who has previously blamed federal government downsizing and high youth unemployment for the dip in ridership, said OC Transpo will use the positive survey results to improve service for existing riders and hopefully attract new ones.

“And if those things work, then we can also see our ridership increase,” he said.

Deans and other transit commissioners praised the results.

“These are the best numbers we’ve seen,” Deans said. “This tells me that confidence in OC Transpo is rising.”

The survey is considered accurate plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for overall results and plus or minus four percentage points for transit customers only, 19 times out of 20.

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